Day 3: Effective Rhetoric & Thesis Statements

First Half- Effective Rhetoric

During this portion of the lesson we discussed both how to write more creatively and how to communicate your message effectively, i.e. effective rhetoric. We also briefly discussed the four parts of an essay: the introduction, body, conclusion, and thesis statement.

Here are the materials I used:
1. PPT
a. Description Activity
b. Practice: Paragraph handouts

Second Half- Thesis Statements

During this portion of the lesson we first talked about thesis statements. Remember that a thesis statement is the main point of your essay which expresses your point of view. You must take a side (this is one of the commandments) in your thesis! I then introduced the Four Commandments as rules that must be followed when you write your thesis statement. Use this list when you write your papers! We also discussed other possible rules, e.g. the thesis statement comes at the end of the introduction, the thesis statement must be concise. While these rules weren't on the list, they are also ways to make your thesis strong. In fact, the first MUST be followed.

Some of you were confused about commandment 3. This commandment means that you should not write a thesis that states a fact that cannot be argued, e.g. 'Cows produce milk.' This is something that cannot be argued; it is simply fact. The other example, 'In this essay I intend to discuss the effects of radiation' is not as clear. This is also obvious because no one can argue that your essay will not be about the effects of radiation. It just is. Say the title of your paper is 'Potential effects of radiation.'If someone were to glance at this title they would already know that your paper will talk about the effects of radiation, so your thesis statement doesn't say anything new. The other thesis (Yes) on the handout is better because it actually states a negative effect of radiation, i.e. being more harmful to cancer patients. This is not so obvious because it can be argued against.


Of course sometimes a thesis can break more than one commandment, which some of you saw on the handout. If any of you have any more questions about the commandments don't hesitate to ask! :)

Here are the materials I used:
1. PPT
2. The Four Commandments (Answer Key)


For Homework:

Reflective Essay 1 (due June 20th)


And finally here is a link to a picture of the item that I used for the What is It? Activity: http://www.espressopeople.com/0/espressoparts

I actually misspoke when I said the object was an espresso tamper (here's a link to pictures of espresso tampers- http://www.espressoparts.com/TampersTamping). It's actually called a portafilter and the object inside of it is a filter. Of course neither of these vocabulary items are very important. Before I worked as a Batista for a short time I had no idea what they were called. Unless you work in coffee you won't need to know any of this. ;) Hopefully though having such a bizarre object made the game interesting.